A decade after the death of the brilliant Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Empire is but a shadow of its former self. Concluding that defeat by the New Republic is inevitable, Thrawn's protégé and successor as the Empire's supreme military commander, deicides that the best option remaining is to seek peace with the New Republic. Yet a corrupt Grand Moff has other plans. Allying with a con man and a former royal guardsman, the trio foster the belief that Thrawn has returned and is fomenting civil war within the fragile New Republic by reopening old wounds that had been long neglected in the face of the Imperial threat. With politics riven by tensions and riots breaking out on dozens of worlds, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa Solo, and Han Solo work desperately to discover the perpetrators behind a decades-old crime. Soon a race is underway, one that will end in the truth — or the collapse of everything that they have worked for.

In this book, the first of Timothy Zahn's  "Hand of Thrawn" duology, the author makes a welcome return to the Star Wars franchise. His book displays all of the strengths of his original Thrawn trilogy, with intricate plotting, exciting action, and memorable characters. The story zips along nicely, though it suffers somewhat from Zahn's decision to focus on setting up events for their resolution in the second book. Though it makes for a less satisfying reading experience than his previous series, it is nonetheless an entertaining work that will leave readers eager to pick up the concluding volume the moment they get to the last page.

Day 18: Name 5 books that are on your mind right now. Seriously, just do it. (Freestyle)

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I've been having crazy mad re-reading urges all year for lots of different books, so that's what I'm thinking about right now. It's super hard to resist reading all the books I want to reread. I'm not even going to bother listing them out here. There are too many, but this is one of the series/authors I've been craving.

I discovered one of Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy books in my library shortly after I discovered Star Wars (at the age of sixteen, mind you). This led me to the Barnes & Noble shelf full of NOTHING BUT STAR WARS and my brain FREAKED THE FUCK OUT. I spent the next three years buying two or three Star Wars expanded universe books every weekend.

The Timothy Zahn Thrawn Trilogy were the second EU books I read, because a BN bookseller was kind enough to tell me they were "awesome." Unfortunately, they also set me up for disappointment where pretty much all the other EU books were concerned (although I really loved I, Jedi, the X-Wing books, and the A.C. Crispin Han Solo trilogy). I didn't get to read Specter of the Past or Vision of the Future until my freshman year of college, but I remember absolutely devouring both of them. I especially thought it was interesting how they switched my interest from Han Solo to Luke Skywalker, and I love love LOVE Mara Jade.

I've done a lot of growing as a reader and a writer since I first discovered these books, so I'd be interested to see how well they hold up. Maybe next year?